MilSpecs wrote:That's actually not true - we had slaves, who also built the nation. We also received survival-level help from indigenous groups.Speaker to Animals wrote:I identify as ethnic American. I literally have zero Irish or English cultural identity. I like those guys, but three hundred plus years on.. that's not me. My ancestors built this nation and -- surprise -- they were white along with everybody else who built it.
So at what point did your family consider themselves ethnic Americans? And, lest you think I'm being facetious, I don't think this is an easy answer. I don't consider myself Dutch - it's been over 350 years - but I'm a descendant of the people of New Amsterdam. It's a distinct culture, an original American culture, but there is no name for the people that I know of. Native New Yorker doesn't imply New Amsterdam. The English are even more difficult, because I also have zero English cultural identity but the Puritans had a distinct culture and it is uniquely American. Yet I wouldn't say 'I'm a Puritan." And to further muddy things, many people who say 'ethnic American' don't know what their history is.
I read a few months ago, for the first time, the term First American. It means all the people who were here at 1776 (and thus were the first American citizens) and their descendants, and implies American ethnicity.
Did Daniel Boone consider himself English or American? I think the identity shift happened a really long time ago. People clinging to superficial European national identities seems to be a product of the riff raff that came since the Civil War. They didn't come here as colonizers and conquerors. Nothing to be proud about except you lost nationality. Sadz.
